Hello all, this is my first post, and an attempt to see how much water this house rule I created holds.

MANA

Purpose: Mana is supposed to replace the spells per day system that is very gamey and in the context of D&D, seems to make little sense, the point of this system to provide an alternative that relies on making magic more energy based, where you can do so much magic in a day with fewer limits on what exactly you cast.

Casting: When you cast a spell, you would be casting it as you expect, however, there would be a difference in the cost. Spells of various levels will have a cost that you subtract from a daily total each time you cast a spell of that level. You restore your mana in the same way that you did spells per day. After a full 8 hours of sleep, you restore to full mana capacity.
Ex: You wish to cast a level 2 spell, which has a cost of 4. So you would subtract 4 from your total mana for the day.

Mana: Your mana total is based on your original spells per day, where each one of each level gives you a certain amount of mana that you then total. This gives you your total mana per day.
Ex: A level 4 sorcerer gets 6 level 0, 6 level 1, and 3 level 2 spells per day. So they multiply each value by the mana they get for each level like so. 6x1 + 6x2 + 6x3 = 36. So he has 36 mana points.

Metamagic: Any time you would cast a spell using a higher level slot normally, you instead use the mana cost for the new level of spell instead.
Ex: A wizard wants to empower his magic missile, which means he casts it as a level 3 spell. So instead of paying the cost of 2, he instead would pay 6 mana.

Strain: It is possible for a spell caster to expend slightly more mana than normally they could. This works like so. If you want to cast a spell that you do not have the mana to cast, you can “strain” the remaining amount. The spell goes off, however, you incur a penalty to your mana equal to the amount of mana you were missing to cast the spell. This penalty reduces by one each day until it is gone. You must have at least half the spell cost in mana still to do this.
Ex: You have four mana left for the day, but desperately need to cast a 3rd level spell, well you can! But the difference in the cost of 6 and your mana of 4 gives you 2 strain points. This means your mana total is 2 less the next day. Then the following day, it reduces, so you only are missing 1 mana. On the third day, you are no longer strained.

Prepared Spells: A class that would prepare spells for the day still does so as normal. However, they can then use mana normally from the selected spells.

How is this different from the Spell Points variant from Unearthed Arcana?

hethoran

2014-01-17, 12:11 AM

How is this different from the Spell Points variant from Unearthed Arcana?

I'm afraid I don't have a large number of source books available to me, and Unearthed Arcana is one of them. I wasn't aware that such a thing already existed. If there is little to no difference, then I may have to go find it to use it myself.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-01-17, 01:09 AM

The first thing to be aware of is nova potential-- using this system, there's nothing to stop a character from casting nothing but his highest-level spells and then resting. Whether or not that's a problem depends a lot on your group.

That being said, a few specific concerns:

Metamagic: Any time you would cast a spell using a higher level slot normally, you instead use the mana cost for the new level of spell instead.
You should probably still limit the highest-level spell slots available, so you can't cast quickened or persisted spells at level one.

Prepared Spells: A class that would prepare spells for the day still does so as normal. However, they can then use mana normally from the selected spells.
Congratulations, you just killed spontaneous casters. If I'm reading this right, prepared casters (wizards) now function just like spontaneous casters (sorcerers), only they get to choose their set of spells known every morning. Better, perhaps, to say that prepared casters spend their mana when they prepare their spells.

The first thing to be aware of is nova potential-- using this system, there's nothing to stop a character from casting nothing but his highest-level spells and then resting. Whether or not that's a problem depends a lot on your group.

I thought about that very heavily while making this, it is why the cost versus mana you get for each level is dramatically different as you increase in level. I know it's not perfect, but you do get added flexibility at the cost of being able to caste the same about power wise as before.

You should probably still limit the highest-level spell slots available, so you can't cast quickened or persisted spells at level one.

That is something I didn't even think about, but yes, you're quite right, I should.

Congratulations, you just killed spontaneous casters. If I'm reading this right, prepared casters (wizards) now function just like spontaneous casters (sorcerers), only they get to choose their set of spells known every morning. Better, perhaps, to say that prepared casters spend their mana when they prepare their spells.

Actually, because this is a house rule developed from my gaming group, and we all hate prepared spells, it was intentional. Part of the reason I created it was to kill prepared spells. For me it's just a flavor change.

Instead, check out Ernir's version (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002), built around more-balanced psionics augmentation rules.

I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the feedback!

Eldan

2014-01-17, 12:51 PM

I wish people would stop calling it Mana. That's just wrong.

hethoran

2014-01-17, 02:01 PM

I wish people would stop calling it Mana. That's just wrong.

What's wrong with calling it mana?

Jakodee

2014-01-17, 09:07 PM

Mana is actual ya divine substance "the bread of god" or some such name.

TuggyNE

2014-01-17, 10:01 PM

Mana is actual ya divine substance "the bread of god" or some such name.

That's spelled "manna"; I think Eldan is referring to a different idea.

Anachronity

2014-01-18, 01:48 AM

http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Mana-Based_Spellcasting_%283.5e_Variant_Rule%29 is the best mana system I know of, in terms of best balance and easiest math. It doesn't quite do what I want to do with my mana system, but as a replacement for the normal spell slot system it's great.

It helps prevent both novas and the 15-minute workday

Actually, because this is a house rule developed from my gaming group, and we all hate prepared spells, it was intentional. Part of the reason I created it was to kill prepared spells. For me it's just a flavor change.

As long as you're playing a game with players who either avoid optimization or simply don't know enough about the game to optimize then this might be okay. Even then the melee dudes might get left out just from the sheer amount of power you're giving prepared spellcasters here. From a purely mechanical perspective though this almost completely invalidates the already-inferior Sorcerer and makes the Wizard even more godlike.

Eldan

2014-01-18, 07:54 AM

That's spelled "manna"; I think Eldan is referring to a different idea.

The concept in pacific religion, specifically. From which the useage as "magical power" is derrived around a lot of corners. The original concept is just a lot more interesting. Look it up on Wikipedia, they have an article on what it means to Hawaiians and Maori.

Sian

2014-01-18, 08:14 AM

Personally, half the time i refluff Psionics into being a spell point system to hold up against the more scholastic strictly systemized Wizard with spell slots and schools and the like